Mother Nature gave one more big try today to shrink the EFI group. By numbers, this should have been a relatively easy day: 123 miles and 4500' of climbing. I switched on The Weather Channel first thing this a.m., and heard several stories about heat stroke. They then predicted that the record high for August 8 for this part of Virginia, set in 1935, would likely be broken today. It was unbelievably hot. The heat index was 115. I'm not sure what the final high was....probably around 107. We had lunch by a fire station in a little town, and one of the firemen came over to chat. He looked at our group with some amazement, and said "You folks shouldn't be out here exercising on a day like this. You should be inside in the air conditioning." And he was absolutely right. At times I felt like the Wicked Witch of the West, about to melt into a little puddle on the road. If you kept moving on your bike, the full intensity of the heat didn't hit. But if you stopped in the sun for any reason, every pore gushed forth with an ocean of sweat. I drank over 15 liters of fluid today and it wasn't enough. I'm glad the ride was only 123 miles, because I don't think I could have gone much further.
Fortunately, our major challenge today came early on, when it was a mere 85 degrees. We climbed 2000' from Harrisonburg to Skyline Drive, which is an extension of the Blue Ridge Parkway in Shenandoah National Park, an extremely beautiful area. It was one last chance for the mountain goats to strut their stuff. The grades, unlike West Virginia, were a more reasonable 5 to 7%. The day was also made slightly more tolerable by trees; we rode on many tree lined country roads, past some very fancy looking estates. The soybeans here looked very scrawny and sickly; instead of the robust dark green of the soybeans in Minnesota and Illinois, these were only about 9" high and had an unhealthy gray-green appearance, doubtlessly due to the drought. Today certainly didn't help them any.
Our motel tonight is next to I-95, the last north-south interstate we will cross. We crossed I-5 just minutes into our first day leaving Everett, and we've crossed numerous other interstates as we've made our way across the country.
Out of 32 riders who started, the EFI count is down to a mere 13. Williamsburg is only about 65 miles from here, but we ride beyond it to Yorktown beach, where we will ceremonially dip our bikes in the Atlantic Ocean. I'm ready to be done. I need to return to work so I can rest up.....
123 miles. 4500 vertical feet.
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